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Conferences, Trade Shows and Field Days: Page 2 of 2

EMC World is the vendor/user love fest.  The show floor is a good place to find a start-up with an add-on or utility that will increase the vendor's product's value. The real value comes from the technical deep dive sessions. Love fests like (Insert Vendor Initials Here) world, Symantec Vision,  Microsoft TechEd and the like are the place to go to learn how better tune and configure the technology you've already committed to. For members of the chattering class like this intrepid bloffer, love fests provide product announcements, roadmap fodder and access to the vendor's spokes people. EMC managed to program the press pretty closely for the first two days, and I didn't get to the technical sessions I would have liked.

Last week was Storage Decisions in Chicago. Here, the emphasis is on high-level education, concepts as opposed to products, with the instructors who are users or industry pundits like yours truly. Vendors foot the bill on the show floor but the guy in the Engulf and Devour booth is more likely to be the regional sales engineer than the product manager.

Then there are the events run especially for the press and analysts. The simplest, analyst's days, cram product announcements, hint at the road map and grant access to spokespeople into a single day with time left over for briefings on the financials. None of us can take the time to attend all the events we'd like to, and I haven't always found analyst days worth my time.

Next week, I'm off to Boston for the third semi-annual Business Development Storage Event which is replacing SNW as the place for vendors, analysts and the like to meet up.  Relationships are built and deal making sometimes follows.  There's no show floor, no swag, just 15 minute vendor pitches, space to sit and meet, and an open bar. I'll cap off the summer at GestaltIT's Tech Field Day.  A small number of invited bloggers, all of whom must be both independent and technical, will descend on Seattle for two days where half a dozen or so companies will make presentations and face the gauntlet. Stephen Foskett and company have put on a few of these events, and from the blog posts they've generated, I'm expecting to have fun.

Then I'll need a long rest.